307.189. Every bicycle, as defined in section 307.180, operating upon a lettered
2 county road shall be equipped with a flag clearly visible from the rear and suspended not
3 less than fifteen feet above the roadway when the bicycle is standing upright. The flag
4 shall be fluorescent orange in color.

When I was a teenager my mom got it into her head that it would be a good idea for my younger brother and me to have flags on our bikes. We were made to mount 6′ vertical flags (the kind recumbents sometimes have) from our rear axles.
The drag was tremendous. I’m not sure, exactly, how we lost them eventually.
But 15′ is an amazing proposal. A bike with a 15′ flag wouldn’t be able to go under tunnels and bridges. I’m assuming the idea is to compromise, say on 7.5′. But whoever proposed this deserves to get targeted by the bike community and voted out of office.

When I read this I envisioned stopping next to a road and slightly leaning the bike to the left, then having the top of the flag grabbed by a truck on it’s way past pulling bike and rider into it’s side.

The article mentions the chicken-and-egg nature of the relationship between bike lanes and gentrification; dense urban neighborhoods are most favorable for gentrification and are also the best locations for bike lanes.
But it doesn’t explore solutions. I’d like to think that here in Pittsburgh we’re trying to address this. We should be adding bike infrastructure across the city, not just focusing on the areas where it is likely to have the biggest economic benefit. We should be adding bike infrastructure up into the Hill District and out to the South Hills.

I’m a long way from PGH now! The Travoy has been an absolute champ. No mechanical problems or flat tires to date and I’m just 55 miles from the Pacific Ocean. I didn’t have any problems going downhill on it, even at higher speeds. Then again my bike is so heavy that my top speeds probably didn’t exceed 25 mph. Overall the Travoy is a sturdy companion and performed well on uneven roads or trails and rolling over curbs when walking my bike to get on/off sidewalks.

Please send everyone in Pittsburgh my regards. One of my favorite stops across this great country!

Recall that the Washington Times is a doctrinaire right-wing (though little read) newspaper owned by the Moonies. And apparently the editors failed to notice that women also cycle (“God’s noblemen”, huh?)

Let’s instead talk about language politics in Latvia !
The poster is in Russian instead of Latvian. A recent referendum made Latvian the (only) official language. But the city is Riga, where the majority of residents are ethnic Russian. So it would make sense. Or maybe one of the figures is Latvian and the other is Russian. But which is which?

I wish I knew either language well enough to make an intelligent comment. I can halfkindasortaalmost sound out what the words sound like, but haven’t more than a 10% chance of understanding what they mean, let alone pick up on any nuances of language or politics.

“There will be a ghost ride to honor Michael Prater on Saturday at 2:00pm corner of Wilmer and Airport Road. The ride will go past the site of another bike fatality, Andrew Gast, to place a ghost bike in Kellogg Park around 3:15pm. Michael loved biking…and while this will give us pause, we will be back on our bikes the next warm day…just like Michael would have done.”

“Until the repeal, all bicycles in Cheyenne were technically required to be registered with the city clerk’s office. Bicycle owners who registered with the city were given a decal – or license plate in years past – to affix to the bicycle. However, the law was not enforced in recent decades. In fact, just one license was issued in 2015.”

Local authorities may regulate the operation of bicycles in their jurisdiction. They may also
require registration and licensing of bicycles. (Title 47 § 15 102) Check with your city or county
government to determine if they have additional regulations concerning bicyclists.

Stockholm cleans their bike trails with this machine twice a day, seven days a week, in the winter. The city (population 800,000) has nine Irish-made “Multihog” machines. “A big tank sprays a saltwater mix. Researchers are studying the proper mixture to get the optimal friction on about 100 miles of bike paths here.”